For God will waste your stocke, and make you sterue.”
Poor Caliban, in the Tempest (act ii. sc. 2, l. 7, vol. i. p. 36), complains of Prospero’s spirits that,—
“For every trifle are they set upon me;
Sometimes like apes, that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me.”
And Helena, to her rival Hermia (Midsummer Night’s Dream, act iii. sc. 2, l. 237, vol. ii. p. 240), urges a very similar charge,—
“Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up.”
There is not, indeed, any imitation of the jocose tale about the ape[[186]] and the miser’s gold, and it is simply in “the mockes and apishe mowes” that any similarity exists. These, however, enter into the dialogue between Imogen and Iachimo (Cymbeline, act i. sc. 6, l. 30, vol. ix. p. 184); she bids him welcome, and he replies,—